LA TRAVERSÉE: A FANTASY PLACE BETWEEN THE BRUTAL AND THE MAGICALLY BEAUTIFUL

October 24, 2016

L A T R A V E R S É E:
Noun, French for the crossing
(1) the act of a person or thing that crosses
(2) a place at which a road, railway road, river may be crossed
(3) Johan Creten’s exhibition, a mysterious and magical journey inspired by his artist residency at Villa Saint Clair in Sète during the summer of ’91, the artist returns to Sète to present his iconic sculptures of ceramics and bronzes.

In 1991, there was only one way to see Johan Creten’s artworks in Sète, located between the land and the huge expanse of the Mediterranean Sea: via boat. A crossing full of symbolism, a sort of voyage on the Styx straddling life and death, towards an unknown place where the diseased and misfits had once been condemned.

Today, The Crossing, embodies a dynamic conversation between the past and current contemporary events. These developments are reflected in Creten’s oeuvre and deals with the relationships between; nature, the female form, power, politics and spirituality.

Creten is a Flemish sculptor, born in Belgium and lives and works in Paris. Creten gravitated towards art as a means of escaping the mundane life in his provincial hometown. Known for his semi-abstract, viscerally biomorphic works, Creten has been credited by none other than the director of Sèvres Porcelain Factory as instrumental in elevating ceramics to the level of fine art.